The Orange Tree Theatre Announces Paul Miller's Outgoing Season as Artistic Director

As the Orange Tree Theatre continues to celebrate its 50th Anniversary year, Artistic Director Paul Miller and Executive Director Hanna Streeter today announce a new season of plays until March 2023, marking Miller's outgoing season as Artistic Director.

The season opens with the return of the 2021 JMK Award winner Diane Page who, following her critically acclaimed production of Statements After An Arrest Under The Immorality Act, directs a major London revival of Dael Orlandersmith's Yellowman. This will be followed by the production of the winner of the 2022 JMK Award, with the winning director and play to be announced in July.

A revival of Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man marks Paul Miller's final production which runs alongside the enchanting family show Pinocchio created by OT's Community Director Liam Shea. After its acclaimed run in autumn 2021, Sonali Bhattacharyya's Two Billion Beats returns, directed by Nimmo Ismail; and completing the season is the world première of Ross Willis' Grim Brenda developed with and directed by Ned Bennett; a co-production between the OT and the Olivier Award Winning Francesca Moody Productions.

Yellowman, The JMK Award-Winning Production and Arms and the Man will also be available to watch on-demand thanks to the continuation of OT On Screen, allowing greater access for audiences far and wide to connect with the OT digitally.

Paul Miller says today "New plays by the most exciting new writers, in dialogue with unexpected and intriguing revivals from the past: this season is another classic OT mixtape. I'm proud that we continue to further the emergence of such exciting talent, from Ned Bennett to Nimmo Ismail, as well as offering revivals that span the repertoire, from Bernard Shaw to Dael Orlandersmith. Since 2014 I have been privileged to lead the OT in forging this path, and am profoundly grateful to all the many people who have worked along the way to make this improbable success happen. It's time to pass it forward now, and I wish my admirable successor Tom Littler all the very best, at the best theatre in the world."

Dael Orlandersmith's YELLOWMAN

Directed by Diane Page

An Orange Tree Theatre Production

Designer: Niall McKeever; Lighting Designer: Rajiv Pattani; Sound Designer: Esther Kehinde Ajayi; Casting Director: Sophie Parrott CDG

5 September - 8 October 2022

Press night: Thursday 8 September at 7pm

OT On Screen: 11 - 14 October

Alma and Eugene have grown up together. Alma, an African American woman, dreams of a life beyond the confines of their small town. But when her friendship with the light-skinned Eugene develops into something more serious, his fate becomes tragically intertwined with hers and they can't escape the legacy of racism and the tensions within their own community.

Twenty years after it premièred and received a Pulitzer Prize nomination, Dael Orlandersmith's Yellowman, set in the 1960s Deep South, is a moving and deeply pertinent play for now.

Diane Page returns to the Orange Tree to direct - she was the 2021 JMK Award winner and directed Statements After An Arrest Under The Immorality Act at the theatre. Her other credits include Julius Caesar (Shakespeare's Globe and Globe on Tour), Lost and Found (Royal Opera House), Out West (Co- director, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre).

Dael Orlandersmith's plays include Stoop Stories, Black n' Blue Boys/Broken Men, Horsedreams, Bones, The Blue Album, Yellowman, The Gimmick, Monster, and Forever. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Drama Desk Award nominee for Yellowman, winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Gimmick, and the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, The Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, a Guggenheim, along with several other awards and honours. Her play, Forever, was commissioned and performed at the Mark Taper Forum/Kirk Douglas Theatre in Autumn 2014, followed by performances at the Long Wharf Theatre Winter 2014/15, New York Theatre Workshop Spring 2015, and Portland Center Stage Winter 2016. Her play Until the Flood was performed at St Louis Repertory in the fall of 2016. She is currently working on two commissions for Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. Until the Flood was staged at Rattlestick Theater in 2018 and Milwaukee Rep. In 2019 it was performed at Portland Center Stage, ACT Seattle, the Arcola Theatre, The Galway Arts Festival at the Druid Theatre and at the Traverse at Edinburgh Festival, The Schaubruhner Theatre in Berlin and at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston SC.

THE JMK AWARD-WINNING PRODUCTION

An Orange Tree Theatre Production in association with The JMK Award

15 October - 12 November 2022

Press night: Wednesday 19 October at 7pm
OT On Screen: 15 - 18 November

A brand-new production from an emerging theatrical talent. The winner and play will be announced in July 2022.

The OT produced the JMK Award-winning production for the first time in 2019 with Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu directing a critically acclaimed production of Little Baby Jesus by Arinzé Kene.

The JMK Trust gives opportunities to young theatre directors of similar ability and vision, allowing one such director a year to stage their own professional production of their choice of play. Last year saw Diane Page directing Athol Fugard's Statements After An Arrest Under The Immorality Act.

Bernard Shaw's ARMS AND THE MAN

Directed by Paul Miller

An Orange Tree Theatre Production

Designer: Simon Daw; Lighting Designer: Mark Doubleday; Sound Designer: Elizabeth Purnell; Casting Consultant: Christopher Worrell

19 November 2022 - 14 January 2023

Press night: Wednesday 23 November at 7pm
OT On Screen: 17 - 20 January

What glory is there in killing wretched fugitives?

In the midst of a bloody central European war, a chance moonlit encounter throws together an idealistic young woman and a Swiss mercenary with an unexpectedly realistic attitude to soldiering.

Raina's youthful love for Sergius, the swashbuckling fighting hero of the Bulgarian army, is challenged when she learns more of the realities of war. Bluntschli's coolly ironic good sense starts to seem more like the future.

When Louka, the servant of the family with a spirit and ambition all of her own, sets her sights on Sergius, the stage is set for an epic moral battle.

Shaw's delightful romantic comedy was one of his first commercial successes and remains enduringly relevant.

Bernard Shaw wrote more than sixty plays in his lifetime, including Man and Superman, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House, and The Doctor's Dilemma. Shaw was awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Paul Miller has been Artistic Director of the Orange Tree since 2014, where he has directed Bernard Shaw's Candida, Misalliance, The Philanderer and Widowers' Houses, Martin Crimp's translation of Marivaux's The False Servant, Jo Clifford's Losing Venice, Charlotte Jones' Humble Boy, Lot Vekemans' Poison, Marivaux's The Lottery of Love, The False Servant, Somerset Maughan's Sheppey, Terence Rattigan's While the Sun Shines and French Without Tears (also tour with English Touring Theatre), Doris Lessing's Each His Own Wilderness and The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd by DH Lawrence. Between 2009 and 2014 he was an Associate Director at Sheffield Theatres, He directed Macbeth at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2019, and for The National Theatre he has directed The History Boys (revival for the West End and UK tour), Baby Girl and Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads by Roy Williams, DNA by Dennis Kelly, The Miracle by Lin Coghlan, The Enchantment by Victoria Benedictsson, and The Associate by Simon Bent.

PINOCCHIO

Created and directed by Liam Shea

An Orange Tree Theatre Production

14 - 31 December 2022

Press night: Friday 16 December at 2.30pm

Hugo is bored, lonely and needs a friend, so his mum makes him his very own Pinocchio, setting them both on an adventure to the top of a snowy mountain, out to pleasure island and into the belly of a wiggly whale!

With puppetry and original music, use your imagination to help Hugo on his magical journey with friends new and old this winter.

Returning after a hugely popular run last year, a fun, interactive show for anyone aged 3 to 103* about the adventures we can have when we pretend.

Liam Shea is the Orange Tree Theatre's Community Director. As a director and designer, his credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream (The Strand, Yangon), Macbeth (National Theatre, Yangon), Stories on The Circle Train (Yangon), Peter Pan (British Ambassador's residence, Yangon) The Pillowman (Tokyo), Alice in Wonderland (Tokyo). As a designer his credits include The Witches (Gaiety Theatre, Douglas), Country Music (Omnibus Theatre), His Spread Legs (Tara Arts), Doorbells of Florence (Rosemary Branch theatre), A Verse and a Chorus (Hen and Chickens Theatre), Fame (Cyprus), Grease (Cyprus), West Side Story (Cyprus) Jesus Christ Superstar (tour Denmark), Songs for a New World (Charing Cross Theatre and Edinburgh) and King Lear (Galleon Theatre).

Sonali Bhattacharyya's TWO BILLION BEATS

Directed by Nimmo Ismail

An Orange Tree Theatre Production

20 January - 4 February 2023

Press night: Tuesday 24 January at 7pm

Seventeen-year-old Asha is an empathetic rebel, inspired by historical revolutionaries and iconoclasts Sylvia Pankhurst and B R Ambedkar. She's unafraid of pointing out the hypocrisy around her but less sure how to actually dismantle it.

Meanwhile, her younger sister, Bettina, wide-eyed and naïve, is just trying to get through the school day without getting her pocket money nicked. When Bettina turns to her for help, Asha starts to ask what standing up for her political beliefs really looks like.

The return of this exhilarating production following its acclaimed world premiere at the OT in 2022.

Bouncing with wit, Sonali Bhattacharyya's upbeat play is a coming-of-age story about the unfairness of growing up in a world where you don't make the rules.

Sonali Bhattacharyya was 2018 Channel 4 Writer in Residence at the Orange Tree, where she wrote Chasing Hares, winning the Sonia Friedman Production Award and Theatre Uncut Political Playwriting Award. Her credits include Chasing Hares (Young Vic), Megaball (National Theatre Learning), Slummers (Cardboard Citizens/Bunker Theatre), 2066 (Almeida Theatre), The Invisible Boy (Kiln Theatre) and White Open Spaces (Pentabus Theatre).

Nimmo Ismail was named one of The Stage's theatre makers to look out for in 2022 and previously directed Two Billion Beats at the Orange Tree. Her other work includes a meal (Poleroid Theatre), Holding Space, Glee & Me, and The Christmas Star (Royal Exchange Manchester), Fragments and My England (Young Vic) SNAP (Old Vic), Two Palestinians Go Dogging (Sparkhaus Theatre), The Other Day, Twelve Months' Notice, The Debate and Winter Blossom Karaoke (Camden People's Theatre).

An Orange Tree Theatre and Francesca Moody Productions co-production

WORLD PREMIÈRE

GRIM BRENDA

by Ross Willis

Developed with and directed by Ned Bennett

An Orange Tree Theatre Production and Francesca Moody Productions co-production

14 February - 18 March 2023

Press night: Tuesday 21 February at 7pm

Brenda hasn't been touched in 500 years, let alone asked how she is.

It's tough being the Angel of Death.

Blessed with a secret talent for loneliness. It's just settled in her soul without her even noticing.

The phone doesn't ring. The house is empty. There's nobody to wait up for. But news of a missing soul is about to trigger an epic wild adventure that will teach her many things about family life, appropriate work-place relationships, and humanity.

An extraordinary play soaked in myth and magic, full of laughter with a beating and bruised heart. Grim Brenda brings together award-winning playwright Ross Willis and director Ned Bennett for a stunning exploration of love, loss, and life.

Ross Willis is a member of the OT Writer's Collective. His award-winning debut play Wolfie premièred to critical acclaim at the Theatre503 in March 2019 directed by Lisa Spirling. The play won the Best New Play award at both the Writers' Guild Awards and the Off-West End Awards 2020 and was nominated for Best Writer at the Stage Debut Awards and Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. His second play, Wonder Boy, premièred at the Bristol Old Vic in spring 2022 directed by Sally Cookson. He is writing new plays for The Royal Court Theatre, Almeida Theatre, Soho Theatre, English Touring Theatre, Paines Plough and Audible. He was awarded a writing fellowship by The Royal Court Theatre and TV producers Kudos to develop a script for television and in 2019 he was awarded a Channel 4 Playwright Scheme bursary with an attachment at the Orange Tree Theatre where he developed Grim Brenda. He is currently an Associate Artist of Pentabus Theatre and has previously been on attachment at the Bristol Old Vic, writer-in-residence at Theatre Clwyd, a member of Tamasha Playwrights Group, Soho Theatre Writer's Lab and the BBC Writersroom Writers' Access Group.

Ned Bennett is a theatre director who trained at the Royal Court, The National Theatre and LAMDA. His practice extends to theatre in the criminal justice system, working with youth theatres and teaching. He returns to the Orange Tree following Pomona and An Octoroon, both of which transferred to The National Theatre, and for which Ned was awarded the Off West End Award for Best Director.

His other theatre credits include Dick Whittington (National Theatre), The Twits (Unicorn Theatre), Unprecedented (Headlong), 1st Luv (The Big House), Equus (Stratford East / UK Tour / Trafalgar Studios. WINNER: UK Theatre Award for Best Play Revival, OFFIE for Best Director, Victoria's Knickers (National Youth Theatre / Soho Theatre), Baddies (Synergy Theatre), Buggy Baby (The Yard), Brixton Rock (The Big House), Yen (Royal Exchange / Royal Court. WINNER: UKT Award for Best Director, jointly with Pomona).

To post a comment, you must register and login.